Canada Confident Of Reaching Trade Pact With EU

by Mike Godfrey, Tax-News.com, Washington

20 January 2009

Stockwell Day, Canada's Minister of International Trade, has announced that he expects work towards an economic and trade agreement between Canada and the European Union to get under way in the coming weeks.

Speaking last week as he concluded a two-day visit to the Czech Republic, which currently holds the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union, Day said that the Canada-EU commercial relationship "has enormous potential".

"The EU is Canada’s second most important partner for trade and investment, with two-way trade totalling CAD109.4bn in 2007. There is no doubt that a closer economic partnership with the EU will help Canadian businesses thrive in this market, providing jobs at home and lowering the cost of consumer products imported from the EU," he observed.

Last October, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso announced at the Canada-EU Summit in Quebec City that Canada and the EU will prepare formal mandates with a view to launching negotiations on an economic partnership as early as possible in 2009.

"I am confident that we will be in a position to launch negotiations this spring,” Day revealed.

In a joint declaration, Harper, Sarkozy and Barroso stated their commitment to "complete these negotiations quickly, once agreement has been reached on all identified issues."

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